Method of planing railroad-rails



(No Model.)

A. A. STROM. METHOD OF PLANING RAILROAD RAILS.

No. 430,408. Patented June 17, 1890.

K 7 QW W,

UNITED STATES ATENT OFFICE.

AXEL A. STROM, OF AUSTIN, ASSIGNOR TO THE STROM MANUFACTURING COMPANY, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

METHOD OF PLANING RAILROAD-RAILS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 430,408, dated June 17, 1890.

Application filed April 23, 1890. Serial No. 349,139- (No model.)

To all whom, it may concern:

Be it known that I, AXEL A. STROM, a citizen of the United States, residing at Austin, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented a new and useful Improvement in the Method of Planing Railway-Rails, of which the following is a specification.

The manner as commonly practiced of planing metal rails for railways, to taper or point them for ordinary purposes of such formation, is to operate with a planing-tool on the end to be tapered of only a single rail supported on the bed of the planing-machine in position to be acted on by the tool.

The object of my improvement is to provide for the simultaneous planing of two or more rails, or of the material for two or more tapered or pointed rails, by a single cuttingtool of a planer, thus to increase the working capacity of the planing-machine by saving in time. This I accomplish by so adjusting the material forming two or more rails to be planed on the bed of the planing-machine with relation to the cutting-tool thereof as to cause it to operate to form simultaneously the tapered ends for the two or more rails.

I demonstrate my improvement in the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 is a plan view showing so much of a metal-planing machine as is necessary for the illustration of my improvement, and showing the rail material adjusted in position to be acted upon by the cutting-tool to taper it for two point rails; and Figs. 2 and 3 are similar views showing modifications of my improvement.

A denotes a metal-planing machine, which may involve any of the well-known constructions of such a machine adapting it for planing metal rails, and it need not, therefore, for the purpose of enabling my improvement to be readily comprehended be further described than by reference to the planer-bed B, which in the machine illustrated is reciprocating, and to the cutting-tool C, which operates like the cutting-tools in rail-planin g machines generally.

The preferred manner (indicated in Fig. 1) of practicing my improvement is to provide a continuous rail D of such a length as will permit a desired number of sections to be severed from it, each of the length required for a tapered or pointed rail. A rail of a length containing two such sections is shown in Fig. 1 of the drawings, and will suffice for the explanation, particularly as it is generally most convenient to provide for the simultaneous planing of such length to produce only two tapered rails or rail-sections simultaneously by the action of a single cuttingtool, though I do not wish to be understood as limiting my improvement to the simultaneous tapering of only two rails or parts of a rail to be tapered, as it is feasible by my method to operate on more than that number. Accordingly, therefore, the continuous rail D is bent at a desired place between its extremities, as at its center, whereby the parts on opposite sides of the bend extend at an angle to each other. The bent rail is then adjusted and secured on the bed 13 in a manner to cause its bent portion a; (near'which the rail is propped, as usual, by a suitable prop r to raise it) to project into line with the tool C, whereby as the bed reciprocates the tool shaves the rail along the side of the projecting part ccf Thus the cutting-tool C (the adjustment of which with reference to its work is common to metal-planing machines generally, and need not, therefore, be herein described) gradually shaves more and more off the side adjacent to it of the rail at the projecting part 00 thereof until it is thinned to the desired extent at the center of the bent portion, toward which, from opposite sides, it obviously is caused to taper; and on severing the rail D at or near the center of the planed bent portion two sections are produced, each constituting a point rail, thus formed at the same time by a single cuttingtool C.

The rail D, bent as described, may be severed into sections 19 and 19 before the planing operation is performed, as represented in Fig. 2, and adjusted and secured on the planerbed in the relative positions illustrated, wherein they are disposed with relation to the planing-tool C like the rail in Fig. 1, and instead of the rail-sections p and 19 being bent, they may be straight, as represented in Fig. 3, and adjusted end to end and secured on the bed B at the proper angle to each other to cause them to project at their adjacent ends into line with the tool C. With the two modifications thus stated the operation of the planingtool may be described as planing both railsections on the portions thereof projecting into its path, the tapering being produced simultaneously, but in opposite directions on the respective rail-sections. However, the manner of procedure first described is greatly the preferred, the purpose of setting forth the others referred to being more to indicate what I consider to be the scope of my improvement, and which may be still further modified without thereby departing from my invention.

What I claim as no w, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is j 1. The method of planing the material of two or more railwaypoint rails to form thereon the points simultaneously by a single cuttin g-tool of a planing-machine, which consists in adjusting and securing the said material on the bed of the machine, with the parts thereof to be planed projected laterally at an angle to each other into line with the planingtool, and thereupon actuating the machine, substantially as described.

2. The method of tapering simultaneously two or more railway point rails, which consists in adjusting and securing a continuous rail D, bent as at .90, upon the bed of a planingmachine, with the bent portion or portions projecting laterally into the line of a planingtool, actuating the machine to plane the rail at the said projecting portions, and severing the rail into tapering sections, substantially as described.

AXEL A. STROM.

Witnesses:

J. W. DYRENFORTH, M. J. FROST. 

